Wreck It Ralph: The Carlton non-tacklers and zero pressure players letting down coach David Teague

Carlton’s tackle numbers will be a huge concern for coach David Teague — and the problem starts at the top with the club’s leaders.

David Teague’s courage on the field was never questioned, with the Blue regularly putting his body on the line to get the job done.

Damien Hardwick finally found a way to make Richmond channel the rugged spirit of his playing days and it won them three AFL premierships.

Hardwick was a niggling, on-the-edge, in-your-face player who was prepared to accept the consequences if that aggression sometimes spilled over into outright aggro.

David Teague was no world-beater across 83 AFL games but in 2004 he was voted by his peers as the most courageous player in the league.

There was no pack the Robert Rose Trophy recipient wouldn’t back into, nor was there any part of his body that he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice to get the most out of his levels of talent.

But right now Teague is coaching a team in the mould of Craig Bradley.

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He needs to coach a team that has the DNA of the same David Teague that would do absolutely everything to make his teammates better rather than pad his stats.

Everyone loves a Craig Bradley, the gut-busting champion runner who never quit.

But to have a dozen of them in your side without the Greg Williams types balancing your team out?

Five rounds into a season where Carlton has beaten only injury-hit Fremantle and Gold Coast, they are 18th for pressure and 17th for tackles.

Case in point: Carlton’s co-captain Sam Docherty. He has four tackles in five AFL games.

Carlton’s co-captain Sam Docherty has just four tackles in five AFL games. Picture: Michael Klein

What he does offensively is lovely — he is elite for disposals, metres-gained, intercept marks and marks.

But even a receiver who sets up the play off the back of packs surely has had enough players randomly intersect his path to record more than four AFL tackles?

Carlton has too many non-tacklers.

Too many zero-pressure players.

Too many players prepared to drift through games with reasonable GPS stats who survive on their strength instead of buying into a team-based tackle-pressure methodology.

Paddy Dow is poor for pressure points and below average for tackles.

Wingman Jack Newnes is below average for pressure points, poor for tackles.

Michael Gibbons is below average for forward half pressure points and below average for tackles.

Will Setterfield is average for pressure points and below average for tackles.

Will Setterfield is below average with tackles on opposition players. Picture: Michael Klein

Marc Murphy is below average for forward-half pressure points and below average for tackles.

He has been thrust into a role he is unfamiliar with and probably doesn’t maximise his strengths.

But with robust pressure players such as Jack Martin out of the side, he needs to play as if his life depended on it when he doesn’t have the ball in hand.

Many of us have got sucked into the hype.

Veteran Marc Murphy is below average for forward-half pressure points. Picture: Michael Klein

Many of us have truly believed that the rebuild was taking shape, with Zac Williams and Adam Saad the cherry on the cake that would finally realise Carlton’s aspirations.

Carlton wants to involve itself in play-on, kick-mark footy that maximises the talents of its list.

But when all goes to hell — as it did with mid-forward connection against Port Adelaide — what does it have to fall back onto to make the game a street fight?

Judging defenders by pressure points is harder given their role, but Jacob Weitering, Lachie Plowman and Docherty are all below average for pressure points.

Sam Walsh is a Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, already Carlton’s best player and above average for both pressure points and tackles.

Sam Walsh breaks the mould at Princes Park and is above average for both pressure points and tackles.

Lachie Fogarty has been quieter after his breakout clash against Fremantle but he never stops trying to apply pressure — 20th in tackles across the competition.

The point is not to play a dour, defensive, stoppage-heavy game.

The Blues have quality ball users, they have a forward line that will thrive with quick ball movement.

But so do Melbourne and Sydney, who have found a better balance of quicksilver ball movement that is complemented by extreme pressure.

David Teague’s courage on the field was never questioned, with the Blue regularly putting his body on the line to get the job done.

Carlton fans will delight in days like the Round 3 Fremantle clash at Marvel Stadium, when the rival midfield is so inept they bask in 29 scoring shots from 64 inside 50s.

What they really want is their players to have a crack when the going gets tough.

The pressure point index is built on someone’s pressure acts, with the physical acts worth roughly double the implied pressure acts.

If that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, it should be renamed the Have-A-Crack meter.

And on that score, Carlton holds a familiar position as the wooden spooner once more.

No better time than Brisbane to turn around a season far from over at 2-3 with the kind of team-lifting acts that were dime-a-dozen in Teague’s own AFL career.

CARLTON’S CONCERN

Points against

86.0

Rank 13th

Opp goals per inside 50 %

24.3%

Rank 15th

Points from turnover diff

-9.8

Rank 15th

Opp pts from defensive half

36.2

Rank 14th

D50 to inside 50 %

18.1%

Rank 18th

Pressure factor

169

Rank 18th